INVESTIGATING THE EMERGING TREND OF ACCOMMODATION CHARGES OF PRIVATE HOSTELS IN GHANA: A SURVEY AT KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (KNUST), UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION WINNEBA, KUMASI-CAMPUS (UEW-K) AND KUMASI TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY (KTU), GHANA

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the emerging trend of private hostels’ accommodation charges, its effect on students pursuing tertiary education. Annual accommodation charges from academic year 2010-2018 per student with 4 students in a single room were collected from the management of private hostels sampled at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), University of Education, Winneba, Kumasi–Campus (UEW-K) and Kumasi Technical University (KTU). Again, questionnaires were administered to 400 students who have rented rooms at the private hostels. 381 out of 400 questionnaires were usable. The accommodation charges were analyzed using MATLAB software to find out relative increase (trend) of charges from 2010-2018. Trend models to forecast future values were built. SPSS was used to analyze the completed questionnaires. It was found out that the relative increase of accommodation charges of private hostels at KNUST have been more than 100% (108.8%) between 2010-2018 academic years with 2010 as base year followed by that at UEW-K (44.0%). That of KTU has been the slowest (26.6%) between 2010-2018. Again, it was found from the study that there has been a rapid increase of accommodation charges which has led to higher charges. The trend model for forecasting the annual relative percentage increase of accommodation charges of the three universities was found to be The 6.6850% means that there has been an average increase of 6.6850% accommodation charge of the 3 universities every academic year from 2010 to 2018. The 3-year moving averages linear model to determine the affordable accommodation charges was found to be  the slope GHs 26.1925 should have been the average annual increase of accommodation charges from 2010 to 2018.It was concluded that the hostels owners should use the 3-year moving averages to determine their accommodation charges.